Hey everyone!
I woke up today and had a cup of irish breakfast followed by a cup of Assam, both were good. Then a few hours later I am on my 3rd steep of some asamushi sencha from Ippodo, which is wonderful I counted my stash of tea thus far and it comes to around 25 opened, 2 unopened. Wow! So many choices, I love it.

Starting the day off with an unusual tea. It is a Japanese Black I got as a sample from Space Samurai. It is really kinda unique, but familiar at the same time. It is rare that I start a day with a black tea anymore, used to start every single day with a black tea.

Which brings me to inventory. When we use words like "inventory" to describe our tea, well....

I am as crazed about trying tea as anyone, and even more crazed for variety. But almost 2 years ago, I realized this is getting insane. I easily had 75 teas open...then I was really worried about teas going stale.

I also decided at about that time to focus on one tea...for the sake of my TeaSanity, I really felt scattered.

I am thrilled to have only 5-7 active teas open. OK, I am cheating a little when I say that because I still have around 10 good Black teas open, but they are not really active and are mainly for sharing. I might have black tea besides today's Japanese one, once a month, tops. I still like it, but I love my focus even more.

I voted 5 to 7 active teas, and then I remembered 3 more. That doesn't include my open samples - and this after just a few months of drinking tea! I blame (thank) this forum for giving me so many ideas about what to try and buy.

I started my day with Jasmine Silver Buds from Upton. It strikes just the right balance for me of tea and Jasmine flavors. The balance shifts for the second cup, but is still delicious. Before this I was drinking Dragon Pearl Jasmine from Tenren in Chinatown. It's too much Jasmine and too little tea, and the second cup, with most of the Jasmine flavor gone, is too weak.

All the talk of oolong made me pull out what I had left of my H&S Pomegranate Oolong. It was rather refreshing today, especially since I primarily drink black tea.

Glad you liked the question, Chip. Although I have to give credit where it's due--the idea was inspired by Space's "Show Off Your Tea" post. After seeing some of the pics & inspecting my own cabinet, I got to wondering who else had more tea than they could drink. I'm still discovering what I like & don't like so I've got about 18 different teas on hand (over half are samples). While I like variety, am hoping to get down to fewer & concentrate on the ones I really enjoy.

I can't believe that Chip topped out the poll at only 50 open teas. Maybe it was a decimal point error. That can happen so easily.

So far today only one tea. I'm on the third steep of the Hong Piao Xiang (whatever that means) black from Simao in Yunnan province. It's working OK at the office but not as good as at home. If I can't find a way to get tea to brew as well at the office as it does at home then I will have to stop coming to the office.

On a topic only tangentially related, has anyone else noticed that Chip never sleeps and seems to know everything? He posts comments here long after everyone else has normally disappeared (even the freaky West Coast types) and he's the first one posting in the morning. The other day he even knew about a couple furtive glances of mine at a lady way too young for me -- and he knew about that from several states away! What's with this guy?

Not counting sample tins I have 12 open teas at the moment. Ideally I'd like to get down to the 4-5 range so I don't have to worry about them getting stale on me. But I am making progress as I have a handful of open teas now that I don't plan on reordering when they run out.

As of now my teacup is filled with orange stuffed puerh, brewed with a few fragments of the dried orange peel.

YAY! My Den's order came today! I'm really suprised at what you get for $3! The loose leaf sample are 10g each, but they only give you two filters. I don't know where to start! I'm thinking of Sencha Funkamidori as a start. And yay! Lots of reading material!

Tea number 2. Kabuse Cha from Uji... hmmm!!! Not mmmm, I said Hmmm. Sometimes a very high expection of a tea can ruin the actual experience. This is the case here. It is good, but way short of my lofty expectations. I have experimented with about 1/3 of the bag so far...will this be the type of tea that on the very last cup of the bag, I just smile and say, "ahhh, I nailed it, finally!?!" That has happened to me.

All this talk of matcha, I might have that next. Or maybe some of that crazy good sounding oolong Sal just sent me? Another reason I had to cut way back on my inventory...it used to take me half an hour to decide which tea would be next...

Sal, your post was a riot. You should definately stop going to work for the sake of your tea enjoyment. We always have our priorities in order, don't we???

jogrebe wrote:As of now my teacup is filled with orange stuffed puerh, brewed with a few fragments of the dried orange peel.

Is that the one from Puerhshop. com? I just ordered some from there. Wherever it is from, what's it like? Is it good?

Yes that is where I got it from after a year of not being able to find them I ordered 30 as soon as I noticed that Puerh Shop had them in again. I like them but have to admit that they are not stuffed with the best quality ripe puerh. On average I get 3 good infusions and a 4th weak one in a gaiwan. Not something that I'd want to drink everyday but its nice to have a few times a month for variety sake.